The Best Floam Slime For Kids

Amaaaaazing texture! That’s what everyone has to say about our DIY Floam recipe. Also called crunchy slime because of the fun pooping noises, the best part about our floamy slime or our slimy-floam is that you get to adjust the texture! We had a ton of fun experimenting with our floam, and so should you. Turn it into a cool science experiment with a homemade slime recipe.

HOW TO MAKE FLOAM SLIME:

STEP 1: Start by mixing 1/2 cup of glue with 1/2 cup of water in a bowl. Mix well to incorporate the two ingredients. Adding water to the glue will help the slime ooze more once the activator is added. The slime will gain volume but also will flow more easily.

STEP 2: Next add food coloring.

We like using the neon food coloring found in the baking aisle of any local grocery store! The neon colors are always so bright and vibrant. Remember when using the white glue, you will need extra food coloring for deeper colors, but start with a few drops at a time.

You don’t need colored foam beads if you plan to use food coloring, so white will work just as well. You can always find white foam beads in big bags!

STEP 3: Add your foam beads to make your floam! A good ratio is anywhere from a 1 cup to 2 cups or slightly more depending on how you want your foam slime to feel.

Do you want it to still have a good stretch? Or do you want it to be thicker and squishy? In general, if your mix-in is light weight, you will want to use more of it. Experiment to find your favorite amount.

STEP 4: Time to add 1/4 cup liquid starch.

Liquid starch is one of our three main slime activators. It contains sodium borate which is an important part of the chemical reaction. read more about slime activators here.

Get stirring!

You will see that the slime forms immediately as you add the starch to the glue mixture. Give it a good stir and pretty much all of the liquid will be incorporated.

SLIME FAILURES

Most of the time the reason has been lack of attention to what supplies are needed, reading the recipe, or measuring the ingredients accurately! Easy things to fix. So give homemade slime a try and do let me know if you need some help!

STORING YOUR FLOAM

I get a lot of questions regarding how I store my slime. We use a reusable container either plastic or glass. If you keep your slime clean it will last for several weeks. I also love the deli style containers, and you can check out our recommended slime supplies to see more options.

If you want to send kids home with a bit of slime from a camp, party, or classroom project, I would suggest packages of reusable containers from the dollar store. For large groups we have used condiment containers as seen here.

I highly recommend keeping it away from furniture, rugs, and kids hair! In our house slime play stays at the counter or table.

HOMEMADE SLIME SCIENCE

We always like to include a bit of homemade slime science around here. Slime really does make for an excellent chemistry demonstration and kids love it too! Mixtures, substances, polymers, cross linking, states of matter, elasticity, and viscosity are just a few of the science concepts that can be explored with homemade slime!

What’s the science behind the slime? The borate ions in the slime activators (sodium borate, borax powder, or boric acid) mix with the PVA (polyvinyl-acetate) glue and forms this cool stretchy substance. This is called cross linking!

The glue is a polymer and is made up of long, repeating, and identical strands or molecules. These molecules with flow past one another keeping the glue in a liquid state. Until…

When you add the borate ions to the mixture, it starts to connect these long strands together. They begin to tangle and mix until the substance is less like the liquid you started with and thicker and rubberier like slime!

Picture the difference between wet spaghetti and leftover spaghetti the next day. As the slime forms the tangled molecule strands are much like the clump of spaghetti!

SETTING UP A FLOAM SLIME SCIENCE EXPERIMENT

We made several smaller batches of floam slime (1/4 cup glue) and tested outdifferent ratios of styrofoam beads to slime mixture to come up with our favorite floam recipe. You can set up your own science experiment to determine which floam texture is the best!

Remember, when setting up your experiment, you want to make sure to keep all the variables the same except for one! In this case, we kept all the measurements for our slime the same and changed the number of styrofoam beads added each time.

Keep a record of your results and note the characteristics of each of your floam slime!

OUR FLOAM SCIENCE PROJECT RESULTS

You are probably dying to know which version of our homemade floam slime recipe we had the most fun with…. Well, it was decided that a full cup of styrofoam beads is our preferred amount to add the 1/4 cup slime recipe.

Each slime was interesting and unique to explore, and it turned into a fascinating experiment and of course great sensory play too.

Keep in mind the lighter the material you add to your homemade slime recipe, the more you will need of it! The denser the material, the less you will need. Makes for neat experimenting!

MORE SLIME MAKING RESOURCES!

Everything you need to know about making slime is below! Did you know we also have fun with science activities too? Click on all the pictures below to learn more.

Has there been an update on this i have year and a half old and her brothers want to make slime but i want it to be safe. Ya know in case she gets a hold of it, oh who am i kidding i know she will. Lol thanks in advance.

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